A discussion on lighting

[fritz]

My electric cost with delivery is around .32 a KwH. The trend in reefing seems to be towards conservation (of money) these days. I see lots of "what bulb doesn't need supplementation" threads and it got me thinking.

For a long time the trend was bigger is better. If 250 watts grew your corals well than surely 400watts would grow them better! I wonder if instead of 250 watts you could do 175 watts but for a longer period of time. Most people run actinics not only for the pop but to see their tank for a longer part of the day! Most people only run their MH for 6-8 hours but the actinics are on 10-12.

If people ran lower wattage lights you could run them for a longer period of time. For example:
(standard)
2 x 250watt MH 12pm-8pm
2 54watt T5 10am-9pm
Total Cost = $51.55 a month

(proposed)
2 x 175watt MH 10am-8pm
Total Cost= $34.07 a month

Now perhaps you say, "Fred you're a fool! 175watts isn't enough to punch deep into my tank. My corals will starve." I disagree. I think that over 6 hours perhaps you're right, but 8-10 hours of even "low strength" light adds up.

Now granted the savings here is only $15 or so, not a big deal and hardly worth mentioning but there is a good amount of heat being saved as well. Less heat in the summer means less humidity and less AC/chiller.

 

[reefkprZ]

yes lenghtening out the day period can make up a portion of the lower light strength but not completly. I have long been an advocater for people using low strength lights to run longer photoperiods to help pick up the slack (I remember when I used Regular out put flourescents and ran my lights 16-18 hours a day) this was before it magically became impossible to keep anything under regular output flourescents <- (note the sarcasm) a lot of people will tell you this leaves no time to recover chloroplast but if they dont use it up they still have it....

I still run longer than average photoperiods just to maximize growth time. 14 hours with both my PC and VHO set ups, but thats just me and I dont reccomend it for everyone. electric bill be damned, I'm running my lights as I see fit I can eat ramen for a month. (with 440W vho and 576w PC not to mention all my reptile heat emmitters and other electricity guzzelers in my house)

 

[fritz]

I'm running my lights as I see fit I can eat ramen for a month. (with 440W vho and 576w PC not to mention all my reptile heat emmitters and other electricity guzzelers in my house)

:biglaugh:
Awesome!
Yes I remember the days of reefing when it was NO lights. You would have as many bulbs as you can fit, vitalights, 50/50 bulbs and actinics.

I had to travel today and I was listening to reefcast in the car. They mentioned a study that a friend was doing whereby he found that raising his T5s to 10inches off the water got rid of the pastel color normally associated with T5s. They hypothesized that UV burn was causing the pastel colors in the sps but they were going to do more testing before they commented further.

This kind of goes with the "we overlight our tanks" theory. There's also another thread on RC that shows you're better off having a lumenbright reflector 12-16 inches off the water. I wonder, instead of running a 400 watt bulb 20" off the water, why not run a 175watt bulb really close to the water?

Maybe I'm crazy.

 

[fritz]

Wow no one has any input, opinions, personal experience to share? Should I move this to another forum?